Adi Da Samraj – 1999 Excerpt from Torque
of Attention Yoga Nidra ADI DA SAMRAJ: What else? DEVOTEE: Master, I would like to know about the nidra
state during meditation. ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yoga nidra? We were actually talking about
it earlier, I didn’t use the term. DEVOTEE: But, where does that fit in? ADI DA SAMRAJ: “Nidra” means “sleep”. The term Yoga is
usually added to it to mean something more than the usual
sleep. DEVOTEE: Is that at the beginning of the process of the
transition? ADI DA SAMRAJ: Yes, as I was describing it earlier. Its
an in-depth equanimity of attention, in which the transition
could be made to the Witness. You go through sleep, or
through objectless attention through and beyond that. So
Yoga nidra could be associated with that in-depth objectless
meditation. That is something like sleep, but its attentive.
But the phenomenon of Yoga nidra could occur anytime. Do you remember I always used to mention this about
Patricia even from years ago? You would observe her in the
meditative setting or even on other occasions, where she did
become meditative, but she would look like she was asleep.
You know that nodding and then jerking back and all that
kind of thing. Well, that’s an example of Yoga nidra, but it doesn’t
necessarily result in Awakening to the “Perfect Practice”,
you see. Doesn’t usually, until there is that unique
capability. So it is a kind of objectless deep meditation
though. So externally it also looks like the person is
sleeping. If it’s Yoga nidra, the person is attentive. If
its just plain old sleep, the person is not attentive, and
not aware of being attentive. And feels unconscious. When
you get up the next day, you say you got a good nights
sleep, you see. But that’s simply because you became
objectless and relatively unconsciousness. So Yoga nidra can be basically just like that, just a
temporary rest, but with attentiveness at its core. And its
a relatively deep state of meditation. But it can be
associated even with the beginning of practice, so, in
itself, is not associated with the transition to the
“Perfect Practice” necessarily. That comes with all of the
other aspects of practice, all coming to the same point, you
see. So, no matter what is arising, you are the Witness, even
now. But if you somehow associate that with the generalized
sense of the body just very generalized, basically just
noticing that you’re bodily here, without moving attention
about, just this general awareness well, you’re asleep.
[Devotees chuckle.] If you close your eyes, you are asleep. But you are
attentive, so you are responding to Me. But notice this state. It is identical to sleep. Fundamentally, in your conscious experience, you are
always asleep. You don’t just go from one state to the next
sleeping, dreaming, waking, waking, dreaming, sleeping, so
forth you are always in all three of them. And at the root, you are asleep, just aware attentive,
but without body-mind association. Your always asleep. But you are noticing that you are asleep now, because you
Stand as the Witness. That is the fourth. Enter deeply into that to the point of transcending
“difference”, you Realize the fifth. So all the time you are asleep, all the time you’re
dreaming too, you do intentional thinking. But notice: Apart
from your intentional thinking, there’s just thinking and
memories, or internal perceptions. There’s a reverie process
that goes on all the while in the mind, and that is the
dream state. If you relax deeply into it right now, you
would experience basically what you experience when
dreaming, you see. And you’re also awake all the time. You do guard the
body. So there is that component. And even now, while waking
certainly awake, in the body you are, if you experience
yourself altogether, not only awake in the body, as the
body, you are dreaming in the reverie aspect of your mind,
and you’re sound asleep. All right now. Once you’re awake, you’re also dreaming and sleeping. If
you’re not awake with the body, and you’re dreaming, then
you’re still asleep also. And if the mind is relaxed beyond,
then you are simply asleep. Remarkably, you’re always asleep, and yet able to
function, dream-wise and waking-wise. And you never truly
become unconscious, because you are Always Already the
Witness. But you can have experiences of being unconscious,
when attention becomes so steady it has no object. Then when
you wake up, you have nothing to refer to. So you assign it
the label “unconsciousness”. But you are the Witness of sleep. You tend to want to
make a life, a philosophy, an understanding of Reality out
of the waking state. And in the tradition of Advaita
Vedanta, a great deal of effort is spent to argue to this
point. Its argued over and over again in that tradition, all
of your presumptions, everything else, are based on waking
state matters. For some reason or other you don’t want to
take into account dreaming and sleeping in your view of
Reality. You want to have all of your mental constructs and
so forth be associated with the waking state, body-based
consciousness. But in all this making your presumptions about Reality,
what about the fact that you dream also you enter into the
dream state? What about the fact that you enter into the
sleep state? And yet theory all you. And what is the condition then, in which the sleep state
arises, the dream state arises, and the waking state arises?
Whatever your point of view about it all, it must take into
account not only waking but dreaming and sleeping. And the
fact that you Witness all three.